


Encyclopedic

by DollBlood



Series: Hidden Places Universe [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angels, Character with BPD and Anxiety, Gen, Jewish Character, Monsters, Rituals, Sacrifice, becoming a better person with help from a higher power, co-dependecy, graphic gore, hivemind - Freeform, in this universe angels are bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 09:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19885273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollBlood/pseuds/DollBlood
Summary: Solomon just wants to find his sister. He didn't ask for any of this.





	Encyclopedic

**Author's Note:**

> The Hawthorne family is one of my favorite group of characters to write. a family who try to be genuine, good people, but all have their own shortcomings that make them imperfect beings. this whole series is about people, not characters.

It was difficult to find kosher deer meat in Munising, Michigan.

Technically, Solomon Hawthorne didn’t _need_ the meat to be kosher, since he wasn’t eating it, but he didn’t really want to touch the flesh of an animal that went against his religion. Not many people ate deer, not anymore. So, it took him a month to finally complete the spell. Most of that time was spent trying to find a shochet willing to hunt a deer through the fae-infested woods behind Solomon’s house.

He hoped that this Angel would be worth it, that it would tell him what he needed to know, and that he would survive to put the information to use.

If his neighbors could see the state of his living room—covered in runes, ash, and jars of blood with the corpse of his deer sprawled across the hard-oak floor—they would call the authorities, and Solomon would never get to know where his sister had gone. The full spell took a week to activate, and the witch hunters would be at his door within an hour. He couldn’t let anyone know what he was doing. Nobody would understand; they’d think he was trying to bring on the end of the world, not returning Coriander Hawthorne to her family.

Angels may have been omnipotent, all-powerful beings, but no one, human or monster, wanted them at their disposal. It had only taken them seven days to reduce the world to an apocalypse, millennia ago. Not even the vilest creature now would wish that upon the world again.

Solomon didn’t wish for the second apocalypse. He didn’t want to see the world burn, of course, but the witch who’d sold him the spell had assured him that the Angel would not be able to leave the area he dictated, should he do it correctly. He would ask his question, get his answer, and unsummon whatever repugnant Angel he’d managed to pull out of the void.

As the spell took hold, over the course of the week, Solomon painted and repainted a large heptagon with the deer blood across his living room floor. He avoided stepping within it, save for the first day when he’d delicately poured the ash of burned hyacinths into a circle just midway between the shape’s center and outline, and carved runes of sealing into each corner of the polygon. Even after this was all said and done, he doubted he would ever get those runes out of the floor.

In the center, lay the deer corpse with its belly slit open so that any leftover blood could soak into its place of rest. It’s black glassy eyes stared at him, pleading, until he couldn’t bear to meet its dead stare any longer.

A musk of natural gas and malted milk filled his house. It was such a strange mix—sour, creamy—and felt like sand in his lungs. No matter how long he spent in it, he could not get acclimated. With each breath, blood rushed to his head—as was a normal bodily function—but now he could feel it with ever inhale. It burned, and even with an air conditioner on, he found himself sweating through his sheets each night. When he took his daily walks, the smell lingered in his curly blonde hair and flannel jackets. The fairies that usually greeted him with pranks now only peered at him from behind thick foliage. His grandmother would have hated to see them so wary.

Coriander would know how to get them to come out and play once again. She was always such a charismatic person.

As much as he hated to do something that would have disappointed his grandmother, Solomon was desperate. Coriander was not the type of person to drop everything and run off for no reason. She had children and a boyfriend — and they were all gone now. Their absences left deep rifts in his life. Solomon had resorted to summoning humanity’s greatest foe out of anxiety, after all, but he _needed_ to know if his sister was okay.

If an Angel couldn’t answer him, nobody could.

* * *

Coriander had brought her new boyfriend home for Shabbat. This wasn’t rare, she had a few partners in her time, but the fact that Bryce was covered in rusty orange fur, had cat ears atop his otherwise “human” head and tended to purr when content was cause for some surprise.

But Bryce was also a sweet man who didn’t want to cause any kind of trouble. He hardly wanted to even come to celebrate with them, in case it would get them in trouble with the neighbors. Their mother had waved off his concerns with laughter and an invitation to help set the table.

Solomon, on the other hand, locked the door and shut the front window blinds.

It wasn’t that he was afraid of monsters, he knew about what they faced on a daily basis, and his mom reminded him that they were the same as regular people all throughout his childhood. He just, well, he was deathly afraid of authority. So much so, that he rarely left his house in the off chance that he accidently did something wrong and wound up in the back of a police car. So much as speaking with a monster was warrant for investigation, so he generally tried to avoid things of magic origins for his anxiety’s sake.

That is, until Coriander brought Bryce along.

And then Bryce was nothing but polite to his parents, only took seconds after everyone else had, and thanked them all profusely for their company. No one but his family had ever thanked Solomon for his company before.

Coriander was the social butterfly of the family, not him.

In the following weeks, Bryce joined them every Friday night for Shabbat, and yet not once did his demure demeanor waver.

When Anna was born, a year and a half later, and they discovered that she too, was a monster, Solomon considered that maybe his sister didn’t quite know what she was getting into. For the first time, he thought maybe he had taken role of the mature one in the sibling relationship.

If Coriander was going to act like her family would face no threats in the current society, then he’d just have to step up and protect them.

* * *

When he had asked about the semantics of the spell, and why he needed such strange objects, the Witch had said something about angelic symbolism and sacred geometry, but Solomon had gone into art for a reason—numbers and thinking and problem solving scared him. It wasn’t until the Witch explained the corpse’s use, that he had tuned in.

But hearing about it and seeing it unfold in real time were two very different things.

Instead of rotting, the deer’s body would become a vessel for the angel. Not just any sack of flesh could handle the power of an angel, so it had to become what the Witch had called a “Perfect Object.”

Solomon didn’t think there was anything perfect about flesh boiling, popping, and stretching across his living room floor.

Every day, he stood in his living room with a kosher IPA, braving the unsettling scent around him, just to watch what was once a deer slowly move and morph and writhe as if it housed some larger animal within its skin.

It was like seeing a monster get hauled away by authorities: even though he knew nothing good would happen, he simply couldn’t look away, not even when he met the eyes of the monster pleading for its life. Too many times, those eyes looked so much like the scared eyes of the few monsters he knew personally, and still that never got him to move to help.

Every day, he sipped a beer and wished the ritual could just end. But with each passing moment, the presence of an angel grew, and the stench in his home filled his chest until his blood nearly boiled.

On the fifth morning, time stretched on so long, that he managed to make eggs, eat the eggs, clean his dishes, and then clean the thick layer of dust that had settled across the counters; all well before the sunlight filtering through his windows turned to the yellow of late morning. He went outdoors to try to make time go by faster, because the closer he stood by the mass of flesh, the more reality faltered. Sometimes he’d bring his beer to his lips only to find that it wasn’t beer anymore. Once, he had gotten a mouthful of plastic shavings instead of his Toasted Oak IPA.

He drank the rest of that one out in the forest, where it returned to its alcoholic state, and the fairies fled from him as if the trust he had spent seven years cultivating between them was yesterday’s news.

Coriander knew how to keep the trust of people and monsters, but he had difficulties figuring it out. He had always been too scared of social interactions. But no more. He would show Coriander that he had some semblance of control over his life and fears.

* * *

Their grandmother Beatrice had been ill for a while but was far too stubborn to go into hospice care, so Solomon had been taking care of her when he wasn’t working on an art piece. Her being bed-ridden is how he found out about the fairies in her backwoods. Tiny winged creatures that weren’t quite humanoid had come to her window to offer their own medicine to try to help her. Apparently, she had been trading food with them for decades, and in return, they treated her like one of their own.

Solomon had never seen monster grieve until he told the fairies Beatrice had passed on months after he started taking care of her. She had left the house and its expansive, monster-infested backwoods to him, since the fairies already knew him, but the creatures weren’t as content with his presence as she seemed to have thought. It took upwards of a year to get them to so much as speak with him.

He wasn’t even sure why he wanted to speak with them so much. It was illegal. So much as living near them could warrant a short time in holding and a pricey exterminator. Talking to them? That meant he knew they were there and let them slide by unnoticed. He'd be in court and behind bars before he could think, should he be caught.

But aside from his own very familiar family, the creatures in the woods were the only other ties to Beatrice, and he wanted to hold onto whatever he could. The house hardly smelled like her anymore, and her cabin was a town away from his parent’s home. His family and Bryce still got together for Shabbat every Friday, but he was down to once a month because driving so far riddled his body with anxiety. Being alone in a town that was only familiar when he was with an old blind woman who was now dead was not doing good things for his mental state.

Being found crying in the woods by Coriander should not have been as surprising as it was. He hadn’t invited her, and she hadn’t said anything about coming by, but that was just like her, to drop by unannounced on his darkest days. She smiled as she approached, big plastic tub of something she surely baked in hand and plopped down next to him with no regard for getting dirt on her sunflower-patterned dress. Her round cheeks were rosy from the sun despite her large sun hat, and her thick fingers opened the tub without a thought as she spoke.

“I haven’t seen you in a while, I figured you were working on a project. It’s so weird that you’re so far away now, I’ve caught myself going to your old apartment so many times hoping to talk about grandma, but then you’re not there and I’m stuck with either talking with Bryce, who never really knew her, or something as impersonal as a phone call, which we both hate. Then I wind up baking just... way too much food. There’s so much food in my fridge, Solomon. So. Much. Figured giving you a share of it is reason enough to come visit.”

He sniffed and looked down at her container. It was full of lemon bars and cookies and a couple slices of some sort of pie. He was far too choked up to respond, but he gave a half-hearted smile in hopes of telling her that her presence was always appreciated. Her eyes softened as she relaxed.

“I knocked a few times, but your car was still here so I just went around through the side gate, I figured you’d be outside if you didn’t so much as peek out the window.”

He nodded and she handed him a lemon bar coated in powdered sugar that flaked off onto his jeans. After a bite of the sweet treat, the lump in his throat unclenched just enough to get a few words out. “I’ve missed you too. A... a lot.”

Coriander nodded and bit into one of her cookies, then let a comfortable silence fall over them as she took in the forest. She always knew when words were necessary and when he needed to just sit with her quietly. That didn’t mean he could relax, but he appreciated her. As the silence stretched on, he fidgeted more.

“How’s um, how’s Bryce and Anna?” he asked to break the peace she had made.

“Good, Anna apparently baby-talks far more than other kids her age, and neither of us are sure if it’s cause she’s a monster, or if she’s got my charm, but I think she might say her first word soon, be it on purpose or not.” she laughed, “She’s gotten sick of our old kid books that mom kept, so Bryce reads his science journals to her for bedtime stories.”

“Isn’t she... like... just over a year old?”

“Yeah! But I can tell, she’s got a lot going on in that little head of hers—oh!”

Her exclamation made him focus on her, only to find she was looking down at her lap, where a fairy with pink petals for skin had landed to inspect her bin of goodies. He tensed up, and Coriander reached a finger towards the creature. It looked up at her in alarm, probably surprised about being caught.

“Hello, I’m not skilled in giving handshakes to someone as small as you, but I’d like to try.” she gave it a bright smile, and slowly, it grasped her finger with two miniscule hands. “Good to meet’chya, help yourself to some treats, I’ve got plenty.”

The fairy’s wings quivered, and it chirped before it dug a chunk out of a lemon bar. It gave Solomon a once over, glanced between them for a moment, then flew off with its bounty—certainly to share with its friends. He watched it go, then looked back at Coriander, who was back to eating her cookie.

“Could you, um, set that one aside? The one it ate from.” she raised an eyebrow at him. “I mean, in case it comes back for more.”

She grinned around her cookie and set the bar on the container’s lid for the time being.

“So, Solomon,” she said lightly, “wanna talk about why you were out here crying in the dirt?”

With anyone else, he wouldn’t. But Coriander understood him in a way others did not. She never looked at him like he was crazy, or stupid. He heaved a sigh and let his words stumble out haphazardly in the way they always did thanks to his nerves.

* * *

While repainting blood on the heptagon, a day before the spell would come to a point and leave behind an almighty creature, Solomon drank his one daily beer for his anxiety. This close, toeing the line of blood, the bottle shifted in form and material in an incomprehensible kind of way. In one moment, it was a beer bottle filled with bright blue paint, but when he painted a stroke of blood, and reached for the bottle, a live rabbit was in its place. He had grabbed it without knowing, startled at the fur under his palm, and in the second it took him to get a better look, it had changed into a box of assorted nuts. He contemplated eating one, but decided it be best to wait until it returned to its original state of being, however long that’d take.

It was during this moment of distraction that the swirling mass of not quite living flesh and blood made a sudden lurch towards him, only to be forcefully stopped by the barrier of blood. The flesh no longer looked anything like a deer carcass. Gone were the hooves and ears and soft brown hide; now there was only pink pulsing meat and wiry hair like streaks of rust. It had no ears or eyes, but it always seemed to react when Solomon came near.

Perfect Object. Yeah, right.

A bubble formed on the mass, then popped in a bloody spatter, and released a hiss of malt-scented air. It undulated, as it reared back to lunge again. Though he knew it wouldn’t be able to pass the barrier, he still scrambled back. His chest fizzed with anxiety, his hand knocked his beer that wasn’t a beer over in panic, and he watched, frozen, as four crayons rolled from his side and into the heptagon. On each paper label, they read innocently, “Toasted Oak IPA.”

He wasn’t supposed to let anything pass the barrier, not this late in the process.

The crayons were absorbed into the flesh, and in response, the mass hissed like Pop Rocks on a warm, damp tongue. It settled, and Solomon was able to finish repainting the shape. He watched it warily as he did so, but if anything _did_ go wrong, he wasn’t sure what he could possibly do to remedy the problem. The Witch had not told him what to do, should he do something wrong. They had assured him that he’d do fine. Though, he now supposed he should have been warier of a witch. They often weren’t all right in the head, as magic did strange things when inside a human body.

But the Witch had trusted him, and told him they believed in him, and hardly anyone but his family ever spoke to him like that. At the time, he had wanted to hang onto that so dearly, he failed to ask all the questions he had prepared beforehand.

The crayon box never did turn back into his beer. But as this went on, he was finding less comfort in alcohol, considering it wasn’t even that half the time. In the face of otherworldly beasts and magic far more powerful than he could ever hope to be, what could a drink that tasted like carbonated bread really do to quell his anxiety?

Maybe he should switch to ginger ale. He’s heard that it helped to settle anxious stomachs, it’d probably do a better job than beer.

Night seemed to come sooner than anticipated that evening, but Solomon wasn’t concerned; he was just excited to get this over with. He wanted his living room back, he wanted his sister back, and he wanted to have some semblance of control over his life. People who had control over their lives didn’t tend to lose sisters or the use of their living rooms.

He woke in the middle of the night to a chill working its way up his legs. His leg hair brushed his ankles in such a way that he thought there were spiders crawling across his skin. The sensation had him jumping out of bed and checking himself in his bathroom mirror for stray bugs several times over, but a sound like the tearing of wet canvas came from the living room and gave him pause. Goosebumps rose across his shoulders and neck as a gust of cold wind barreled through the doorway and brought with it a smell that was decidedly not malted milk. For the first time in a very long week, Solomon smelled the pine of the wood that made up the house.

He hesitantly walked down the hallway to the living room, dreading to find out if he had truly messed up the spell or not. He wasn’t sure which outcome would be the most pleasant, to be honest. When he turned the corner he looked up, expecting some kind of ancient golden thing with giant halos and multitudes of white, dusty wings. He expected to see what he had learned about in biblical history classes in college, but he saw nothing of the sort.

Instead, he dropped his gaze and found himself staring at four children who looked straight out of some sort of twisted cartoon. They were obviously monsters; what with their fully-saturated colors, uncanny expressions, and strange, off-human body parts, but all that Solomon could think in that moment was that they were kids—no older than thirteen. Strange, monstrous kids, but children all the same.

He hadn’t gotten an Angel. He had failed. He needed to let these kids go, they probably had families that he had ripped them away from with his ruined spell.

“I do not,” said the child with bright yellow skin, a missing arm, and unnaturally red hair. It did not blink, just stared at him wide-eyed, then slowly tilted its head to one side. Its neck was too long.

“What?” he whispered.

“I do not have a family.” This time, it was the pink-skinned one. Its blue hair covered its whole face, save for its sharp-toothed smile.

“Well, what about the others? Just because one or two of you don’t—”

“I don’t have a family,” interrupted all four of the kids, all with similar variations of an emotionless tone. The blue-haired one continued as the rest went quiet: “Unless, of course, you count the first click, when everything came to be, all at once.”

The pink child did not talk like a thirteen-year-old. The yellow one—the only one with eyes not shadowed by technicolor hair—had far too much knowledge behind its blank stare. The other two—one orange, with sabered tusks and green hair, and the other with skin like the night, and a mouth on its torso instead of its face—were mumbling to each other, huddled, and the concepts he could make out were far too complicated for someone so young. But they weren’t human children, there was no way they could be.

_Universal distortion.... Entropic reversal.... Wrong dimension.... Alpha, Zeta, Delta...._

The pink one snapped its fingers in front of his face and he, in turn, snapped back to attention. It continued to smile and spoke as if he had never gotten distracted. “You sure did mess up, huh? You know that there’s easier ways to summon an Angel, right? They aren’t very smart, like a starving dog that does anything for a treat. A little sacrifice here, some cultist shenaniganry there, bah-de-bah-do, get yourself a whole Angel ready to send you off to the slaughterhouse.”

Solomon bristled. “Listen, kid—” It opened its mouth to respond, but Solomon just kept barreling on. “Yeah, I messed up a spell, but that doesn’t mean you can lecture me on it. I know I messed up, I’ll just... I just have to try again. And get rid of all of you too. Where did you even come from? God, I just....”

“You just want your dearest sister, huh?” Pink interrupted. “Well, what did you do to deserve her?”

Solomon took a step back in surprise and glanced at the others. Yellow stared and tilted its head to the other side as if considering a struggling bug in a jar. Orange frowned, but that could have been due to its inability to close its mouth around its huge teeth. Mouth-body fiddled anxiously with its thick purple hair.

“She’s... I mean, she’s my sister, she shouldn’t have left without telling us where she was going.”

“She’s also a grown human and can do as she pleases.” Orange muttered, “You’re the one who sounds ridiculous, so desperate to have a sibling around to make sure you can get yourself out of bed in the morning.”

“I don’t rely on her like that—”

“When you were fifteen, she had friends over and you got a panic attack so bad, you hid in the closet until she told them to go home so you’d feel comfortable again.” Yellow said. There was no blame in its words, nor joy, or anger, or anything of that sort. It sounded like it was commenting on the color of the sky, not things that Solomon kept buried in layers of past embarrassment. “You might not be in a closet, but are you really any different now?”

Solomon shut his eyes tight and shook his head as if he could erase this whole situation like an etch-a-sketch. “This is all... you all are here because I let something enter the ring, aren’t you? This is ‘cause I fucked up and the magic of the world is punishing me for it. Bryce said that magic has a mind of its own, that it’s a sentient force. This is karma, you were made just to hurt me.”

Yellow rolled its eyes and shifted its weight to one leg. Solomon could see its bones shift beneath its plastic-wrap-like skin. It opened its mouth, but words came from Pink’s tight smile. “I am here by choice. You did not _make_ me. Yes, you messed up the spell, but I just thought it would be fun to pop in and tell you why you’re more pathetic than you know. Your actions have less meaning than you what assign to them.”

“But, the crayons....”

Orange sighed loudly and pushed back its hair in an aggravated movement, revealing the smooth skin where eyes should have been. Not a single thing marred its carrot skin, beyond its large nose and the stretch marks around its too-big, too-open mouth. “You creatures who only experience a flirtation of life, you’re always finding connections between the wrong things. If anything, I am here now because of the bird that flew into the window down the street and died last evening. That series of events makes far more sense to me than your stupid, promised failure of a spell.”

“Promised failure?” he squeaked out.

Mouth-body scoffed, and Pink spoke, “You didn’t kill the deer yourself! If you can’t get its blood on your hands from the get-go, then you shouldn’t bother with a spell like this in the first place!” It exclaimed. It waved its hands in the air as if to better explain how bad Solomon was at the whole “doing things right” thing.

“But it wouldn’t have been... wouldn’t have been kosher....”

“Do you think an Angel cares about being kosher?” Mouth-body asked. It was strange, he thought, to hear a voice come from a torso. “If you want to speak with one, you must lower yourself to their standards. They do not care about the treatment of meat. Unless you were to kill it with your bare hands, an Angel will not bother.”

Solomon’s stomach twisted sharply. He felt sick and, even worse, useless. His eyes burned with tears he refused to shed in front of these creatures, and his words were blocked in his throat like a fifteen-car pile-up. As he tried to catch his breath in his panic, Orange came forward, stood on the inside edge of the summoning shape, and spoke calmly.

“Solomon Hawthorne, you cannot go through your life hanging off of your sister. She is facing enough problems with her monster family; you can’t pile your own issues onto her. Grow up. Rely on yourself.”

“I-I do rely on myself. I mean, I did all this on my own. I went out of country just to talk to a witch I didn’t know to get the spell.... I took control of my life, and you’re the ones standing in my way now!” his panic was ebbing away in favor of his anger. None of the creatures in the summoning circle looked impressed, which only fueled his fires. “This is me in control, and I guess the universe doesn’t like that, cause you’re here to ruin my progress! What did I ever do to you, huh?”

The four creatures turned to each other, somehow looking concerned for him despite their lack of features. Yellow approached the edge of the blood now, mouth pulled into a tight frown, unblinking eyes wide and focused. With it so close, he could see the press of its bones beneath its skin, like an emaciated child. There was no room for organs between its skin and bones. It looked like a toothpick he could snap between his fingers.

“Solomon Hawthorne, this is not progress. This is obsession. I do not understand why you need her so badly, why she has moved on with her life, yet you have not. What is keeping you from living? Right now, you are only surviving, wasting your time alive. I am forced to watch all living things come and go and record their progress. Nothing infuriates me more than those who choose to stand static.”

“If you know so much then you should know why I am here now.” he muttered, unable to meet Yellow’s unwavering gaze. “I have a disorder. It’s in my head, so I can’t just go somewhere and get away from it. I guess you can’t understand that.”

“No, I cannot. Because countless others have disorders like you, and they are still able to make something of their lives, somehow. You're just pathetic and making excuses for yourself, and I am sick of having to watch you wallow across all dimensions.”

Like the click of a lighter, something in Solomon snapped. Not because of any lies Yellow said, but because somewhere in him, he knew it was right. He had spent so long telling himself that he could not improve because of his illness, that somewhere down the line, he started to believe it. But Yellow told nothing but the truth in a way that hurt him the most, and he couldn’t stand it. So, he reached across the summoning circle, and his big hands—the ones that were able to carve delicate sculptures out of felled trees—wrapped around Yellow’s too-thin neck and squeezed.

Its gaze did not stray from his face as he felt another snap from within, but this one so very different from his own. Yellow’s neck bent at an odd angle, its body went limp, forcing him to hold it up—it was far too light to be a living thing—but still those eyes were fixated on him, and they did not blink.

The lighter inside him was blown out. He cradled the being in his arms, his breath coming short and damp, and looked over to the three others. There was no beat of life within Yellow’s body. The others stood still and despite Orange’s and Body-mouth's neutral faces and Pink’s unbearable smile, they all looked vaguely upset. Orange’s large tongue, thick and unnaturally purple, lolled over its teeth like a panting dog, and Mouth-body fidgeted with the ragged teeth emerging from its torso.

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t know what... I didn’t mean to-”

“Yeah, you did.” Pink laughed, “People rarely “don’t mean” the things they do. Just embrace that you really did want to kill me.” It took a deep breath and cracked its neck loudly as if working out some stress. “Stop lying to yourself.”

“That would make you far more entertaining for me, at least.” Yellow’s voice startled him, and he dropped the body in his arms. Yellow sat up, cracked its neck much like Pink had, and looked up at him. “But you should be doing it for yourself, to be fulfilled. Not for me.”

“I don’t know what I’m talking about,” Pink scoffed, “do it for me, I think watching you has brought me the closest to death I have ever been.”

Solomon fidgeted with a callus on his hand. It was like there was something sitting on his chest, keeping him from getting his thoughts out. This always happened when he tried to ask for something. Yellow stared at him, patiently, like it knew he was trying for once. He wasn’t used to trying. He couldn’t look at any of them.

“I don’t... know how to do what you’re asking of me.” He started, feeling smaller than he really was. These creatures were half his size but were somehow so much larger than him and his life. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Easy, stop being a pussy.” Pink said cheerfully, and Orange elbowed it hard.

It seemed like it was going to say something, but if Solomon waiting any longer, then he would never say what he needed to. “Can you teach me?”

Pink froze in place, clearly about to slap Orange back. Yellow took a step back, eyes wider than normal, and Mouth-body pinched at its gums until its waist bled. Their blank shock sent ripples of terror down Solomon’s spine, and he started to back-track to keep himself safe, from being harmed, or from rejection, he couldn’t say.

“I’m sorry, that was weird, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot, I just-just, um, never-mind. I’m just being stupid.” he stared at his feet so that he didn’t have to face their reactions.

“That’s not...” Pink said slowly, “That’s not stupid. You might be an idiot, absolutely, but... asking for help is not stupid. Never stupid.”

Solomon quickly looked up, startled by Pink’s sudden soft tone. It was twirling a strand of bright blue hair around its fingers, almost anxiously.

“How could I possibly help you live, though?” Mouth-body asked.

“You’re... the only things... thing? That has ever told me point blank that what I’m doing is wrong. Everyone else... my parents... they coddle me. My sister, I guess she also helped me live, but was...” he let out a short laugh, “She was nicer than you, for sure. That’s why I want her back. I just want someone to save me from myself.”

Yellow glanced back at the others, but was met with shrugs instead of answers, so it turned back to Solomon sternly. “I have a job to do. I record the history of everything. One man cannot pull me away from that, because everything happens all the time, and won’t stop until everything ends for good.”

He nodded and sighed. “I know, I can’t, what, rely on others to cure my problems. That's why you’re here, right? To tell me that?”

“I came here to call you a bitch!” Pink called out.

Yellow continued. “But... I took time to approach you now. I am always watching, Solomon. Know that. If you are doing something not to my standards, I can easily return to end you if you do not fix yourself.”

Solomon laughed lightly, slightly panicked, and ran a hand through his hair. His shoulders relaxed, and he closed his eyes as he took a deep breath to try to ground himself in the moment. When he opened his eyes again, he was alone in the middle of a heptagon painted with deer’s blood on his living room floor. There were melted candles around the room, and crayons scattered in one corner. The room was thick with the smell of candle smoke and the curtains were shut tight, just as he had left him before he started this whole debacle. Another lungful of smoke, and he made a decision.

With a confidence he rarely felt, Solomon strode forward, flung back the curtains, and opened the window. As the room aired out, he felt eyes on him and everything else, and for once that feeling brought him a little bit of comfort. At least now he was scared of wasting his life instead of living it.


End file.
